This invention concerns the sector of pistols in general and refers in particular to an end plate for the pistol magazine.
Pistols have a handle or grip for holding and manipulating the arm with one hand, on the part of the user, and there is usually a magazine inserted into the handle from below for the ammunition.
In general, the magazine consists of a chamber closed at the bottom by an end plate which is flush with the bottom end of the pistol handle. The end plate is removable from the chamber and, for this purpose, there is a spring lever that rests against the end plate via a spring-bearing plate.
Some pistols, in order to restrict the overall dimensions when not in use, have a short stocky handle, with a limited surface area for gripping by the user.
In other words, the length of the handle is insufficient for placing all the fingers from the middle to the little finger of the hand holding the weapon, giving an insecure hold and use of the gun, especially when the hand is big.
In an attempt to overcome this inconvenience, a magazine end plate for pistols has been invented and used which has an integral appendix facing forward and curved at the bottom as a continuation of the front side of the handle, in such a way as to increase the surface area for holding and gripping with the fingers involved. However, the integration of the appendix with the end plate and, thereby, its rigidity, implies a permanent increase in the pistol dimensions, just as if the handle were longer, which contributes to resolving one aspect of the problem, namely the gripping surface area, but fails to meet the other requirement of an effective reduction in the pistol dimensions when it is not in use, or in the holster.
The aim of this invention is to resolve completely and definitively the problems mentioned above and which are linked to a pistol with a stocky handle, by means of an increase in the gripping surface area of the pistol handle, to give a correct and safe hold, but without any increase in the gun dimensions when it is not in use.
Another aim of the invention is to furnish an end plate for pistol magazines that can adopt two positions, one of reduced dimensions and one of increased gripping surface area of the handle, without modifying the usual common shape of the end plate, neither in its method of application to the magazine chamber nor in the shape of the chamber itself.
A further aim of the invention is to supply an end plate for the pistol magazine that can be used and mounted on a chamber, in the place of or as substitution for a normal end plate, and which extends, as needed, to increase the gripping surface area of the handle.
Said aims and the advantages that they imply are achieved, in accordance with the invention, using a magazine end plate which is inserted into the handle of a pistol, which consists of an extendable element that can move from a retracted rest position, which is co-planar and flush with the end plate, to a downwards extended position, to give a temporary increase of the gripping surface area of the handle.
The extendable element of the end plate normally remains in the retracted rest position and moves to the extended position after contact and pressing on the element itself by the little ringer of the hand holding the gun.